


The Hours

by hopesetfree



Category: Interstellar (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Doyle Lives, F/M, Fear of Death, Platonic Romance, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4548495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopesetfree/pseuds/hopesetfree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doyle awakens on Miller's Planet hours later, stunned and stumbling blind through the water. But he soon discovers he's not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hours

_The straw in his his mouth has no taste, like the corn he eats at every meal. But if he tilts his head just so and pretends he's still a boy, he can pretend the corn stalks are magical. He enjoys the way he can lie on his back and stare up at the towering rows. The young stalks billow and roll in the wind, and when he's staring at them just right, they flow like water; reminding him of golden fields of wheat he saw as a child._

_Sometimes he strolls his uncle's farm and runs numbers in his head, endless numbers. How many gene mutations does the Blight make every day? How many people will starve to death this month? How much of his uncle's crop will die this year?_

_As a boy, he asked different questions: How does the landscape look from above? To what heights do the mountains rise? How deep is the pond across the way? Those questions led him to college and life as a geographer; a mapmaker._

_But new questions plague him as an adult: How long until everything falls to rot and ruin? A decade? Two? Will the blight eventually claim everything that grows? Will the world entire become as barren as the Atacama?_

_After his uncle dies, he doesn't visit the farm anymore. He buries himself in his work, but his brain won't stop the torture. He sees numbers. Everything becomes about numbers. The speed of a gravity wave, rates of radioactive decay, the ticking of the clock on the wall, the height of mountainous dunes of dust._

_Numbers rule his life. He hates them. He loves them. He can't escape them. The rise of a mountain, the depth of an ocean. These things define his life. He's still a mapmaker, but now he only chronicles a world's ruin._

* * *

He awakens face down in the water, his pulse thundering in his ears.

He flails on instinct, because through the visor of his helmet a murky mess greets him, shallow and disgusting. It's only after he's throwing himself backwards, flailing to sit up and gasping for air when he remembers he already has oxygen. He's wearing a spacesuit, after all.

Everything hurts, but remarkably, everything seems to work. He doesn't dare tear away pieces of his suit to figure out if he's actually hurt. He'll do it once he's back on board the Ranger.

He furrows his brow, trying to remember what just happened. He remembers water, so much water, and getting drawn under, under, under. His throat has gone raw from screaming as he tried to fight it, knowing he couldn't weather such a wave and live. Do not go gentle into that good night, Professor Brand always said.

He remembers seeing the Ranger getting drawn up into the swell, just before going under the last time; just before he thought the undertow would rip him into pieces. And then, nothing but darkness.

His head stops swimming long enough for him to manage to sit up without weaving around, and he tries to take inventory. His muscles scream with the effort of turning, of searching the horizon in every direction. He sees nothing but flat, calm water in every direction.

Where is the Ranger?

He lifts a shaking hand to his helmet, tapping his comm. It crackles in his ear.

“This is... Doyle,” he manages to huff, though it feels like an elephant has parked itself on his chest. “I'm all right.” He takes a shaking breath. “What's your position?”

_One second, two seconds, three. Oh god why isn't anyone answering?_

“Brand? Cooper?” he tries again, his voice small. “CASE?”

He leans forward, presses his hands into the submerged sludge and pushes, lumbering to his feet in a battle against gravity. Everything hurts, everything _hurts_....

“Guys?” he croaks, and tries not to panic. “Hello? Cooper? Brand?”

Nothing greets his ears, not even static.

_Oh god, oh god, where is the Ranger? Where?_

His heart stutters in his chest, and his stomach roils as he commands his body _not_ to panic. He spins in slow, sluggish circles, scanning the horizon with a thorough gaze. In the far distance, he sees orange, bright flecks of metal in the blue water, perhaps the remnants of Laura Miller's failed expedition.

But no wreckage of the Ranger. No wreckage, and no sign of the ship…

Oh god. _Oh no_. Did they leave him there?

His heart drops to the pit of his belly as he wonders if it could be true, and knows it probably is. He had washed away with the swell, a scant breath away from grasping Amelia's hand. He knows he's been out of it, though he doesn't know _how long_ , and if they called for him and he didn't answer, if they couldn't _find_ him…

_Tick-tock-tick-tock mind the time because here the hours turn to years_

He searches the horizon again, and knows. He's all alone here.

* * *

He stomps around in the water a while. Screams. Wonders what a dead man walking should do with two hours' worth of oxygen. Wonders how they could have been so stupid, in so much of a hurry they didn't think it through.

The waves make sense. The water makes sense. Gargantua's tidal gravity doesn't just slow down time, it creates a more traditional tide, too. And here, there's no land to break the waves. So the tide just travels in one huge hoop, roaming the planet unhindered as it spins on its axis. Humanity could never survive here.

And judging by the far-distant line forming on the horizon, he'll have other concerns than his oxygen supply very soon.

Doyle grinds his teeth, and considers just taking his helmet off and being done with it all. Of all the ways to go, he thinks he might rather take his chances with whatever's in the air than stare down another monster tsunami. Yeah, he survived the wave the first time, and who knows, maybe he got sucked under a second time, too. It'll take creativity to live a third time.

At least his spacesuit keeps the water out, too, or he'd have drowned by now.

Maybe drowning would have been kinder.

He stares at the wave, hours distant, but unavoidable. He stares at his watch for the millionth time. They landed five hours and seventeen minutes ago. Numbers, numbers, his brain screams numbers and formulae at him. Out there, more than thirty-five years have passed. He could do more math, calculate the precise amount of time seventeen minutes equals, but he doesn't want to.

By now, either Plan A or Plan B has already happened. Cooper, Brand, and Romiliy have long moved on, grown old and gray stewarding the future of mankind. Maybe they've settled on Mann's Planet, or further out on Edmunds'. Or maybe both planets spelled disaster, just like this one, and there's truly nothing for mankind out here.

He could be the last man alive. Corn was fast succumbing to the blight when he'd left Earth. Maybe dust and rot has devoured it all by now. If Plan B failed, there's no one else left.

If he tilts his head just so, he can pretend the monstrous wave in the distance as a tiny line of mountains.

There's nothing for him here. Just time, too much time. The minutes will turn to hours, and the wave will swallow him whole. There's no one coming for him, a fact so obvious and frightening it threatens to crush him where he stands. In thirty-five years, a rescue mission would have already shown up.

His hand creeps to his helmet, to the latch which seals his suit from the outside air. Like an itch, his fingers twitch and hesitate. He doesn't want to die, not like this. He also doesn't want a giant tidal wave to kill him, either. But he only has two choices, and he's not sure what to do. He's going to die, and soon. It's only a matter of whether he kills himself or lets nature kill him. Or, against all odds, if he lives long enough for his oxygen supply to run dry.

The comm in his ear crinkles with static. “Hello?”

He freezes. He knows he's knocked his head quite hard, but he's fairly certain he didn't just imagine a voice in his mind.

“Hello?” the staticky voice asks again—a woman's voice. “Is someone there? Anyone?”

The idea of unsealing his helmet slips away like water, and his hand instead flies to his comm, switching it on.

“Yes, hello?” he responds after too long a pause, and he remembers how to breathe again. “Doctor Brand? Is that you?”

A long silence follows, long enough Doyle thinks he's lost his marbles. But the static returns, and the fuzzy voice speaks.

“No, I'm Doctor Miller.” The static falls away, and her voice clears. She sounds as weary as he feels. “Laura Miller? Please tell me you're from the Endurance crew and you're here to rescue me?”

Doyle blinks, bites his lip hard enough to bleed. He’s so exhausted and confused, and so outright _frightened_ of his impending doom he has no idea what to say.

“Well, I _am_ from the Endurance crew,” he manages.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates might be slow, but they'll happen. This is an idea that's refused to leave me alone since I first saw the movie.


End file.
